


Victory Has a Price

by Reiya_Wakayama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Hurt!Stiles, Implied Torture, Non-Graphic Violence, angry!Scott, guilty!Derek, pissed!Sheriff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 15:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiya_Wakayama/pseuds/Reiya_Wakayama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s alone when they take him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victory Has a Price

**Author's Note:**

> This diverges just after Stiles gets taken by the hunters in Season 2, but instead of being let go, they beat him into a coma.

They take him when he’s riding the high of victory. When his limbs tremble with fatigue and adrenalin. He’s the center of it all for once is when they strike. One second victory, the next, the lights are out and screams and no one is even looking in his direction, the hero of the game. No one sees them take him; no one hears his muffled cries and grunts. He’s alone when they take him.

And he’s alone when he’s found.

It is hours after the game, and no one is looking for him except his father, the rest too busy dealing with Jackson and Gerard. His father is alone in the house when he hears the sound of slamming doors and squealing tires.

When he comes out of the door, he sees where they left him, battered and broken on his front lawn. He doesn’t even stir as his father shouts his name, even as he’s calling for help. Help comes in a swirl of lights and sound, pushing his father out of the way to get to him. All the while, his father calls his name.

~*~

Scott shows up sometime after the paramedics have left, with Stiles and his father in the back, to an empty house, no sign of the Sheriff or Stiles even though both vehicles are in the drive way. Frowning, Scott dials Stiles’ phone again, but it goes straight to voice mail.

He’s been trying to get a hold of Stiles for ten minutes, trying to tell him that they won. That they beat Gerard and Jackson’s a werewolf now and about Peter, but all he gets is the same machine saying he’s not available.

Scott jumps when his phone rings, but he see it’s just his mother. “Yeah, mom,” Scott says into the mouth piece, frowning.

“You need to get down here now,” she says.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Scott asks, frowning, thinking of all the things that could have gone wrong tonight as he walks back towards the sidewalk.

“Scott,” she says and he stops, waiting. “It’s Stiles,” she says softly and he’s off running.

~*~

Stiles is still in surgery when Scott arrives, out of breath and eyes wide in worry as he looks around for his friend. His mother is waiting for him. “Where is he? What happened?” he asks, frantic.

“I don’t know. He was apparently left on his front yard like this. It…it doesn’t look good. There was a lot of internal damage. No one knows who did it though,” she says, though she looks at him, as if she knows he knows something.

Scott shakes his head. “He disappeared at the game. I was…I was going to go look for him, but things happened with Gerard and the hunters and everything. I didn’t even know he was hurt until you called,” Scott says, wringing his hoodie in his hands frantically.

“Do you know who did it?” she asks softly, touching his hands to stop them.

Scott looks up at his mother and squares his jaw. “No, but I will find out,” he says and takes off before she can grab him. Sighing, she goes back to where the Sheriff is slowly pacing a groove in the waiting room, hoping to provide some comfort until the surgery is done.

~*~

“Derek!” Scott shouts, barreling down the steps to the train station that they’ve taken over.

Derek’s in the center of the room when he reaches the bottom, arms crossed and eyes red as he stares at Scott. “What the hell are you doing here, Scott?” he growls.

“We don’t have time for this, they hurt him,” Scott growls.

“Hurt who?” Derek asks back stiffly.

“Stiles!” Scott yells out.

“And this is my problem how?” he asks rigidly.

“God damnit, Derek! They took him because of us. He’s in the hospital in surgery because they wanted to get to us,” Scott yells, hands fisted and eyes yellowed as his wolf started to stir.

The station echoes with his last words and Derek shifts on his feet, still glaring, but not at Scott anymore. “What do you expect me to do? The hunters have left town already and unless your girlfriend or her father had a hand in it, I can’t do anything,” Derek growls out.

Scott slumps, seeming to collapse into himself. “How bad is it?” Derek asks softly.

“I don’t know for sure. Just that they dumped him in his yard afterwards and that he’s in surgery for internal injuries. Mom said it doesn’t look good,” Scott says softly.

Keeping anything off of his face, Derek steps forward, placing a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “He’s going to be all right,” Derek tries to reassure. It sounds hollow and falls limp when they both know that Stiles is only human.

~*~

It is a few hours since Stiles came out of surgery. The doctors were able to stop the bleeding, but there was a lot of head trauma. They won’t be sure if there is any brain damage until he wakes up. If hangs in the air like miasma that slowly eats away at their belief in Stiles’ health.

They have him in the ICU with Mrs. McCall and the Sheriff as silent sentinels watching over his unmoving form. Eventually they have to leave though. The Sheriff goes to the station to fill out a statement and to see if any leads have been found. Mrs. McCall is for home in hopes of a shower and a few hours’ sleep before her worry over the boy she considers like a second son forces her back here.

It’s Scott who eventually convinces them to go, that he’ll keep watch for them while they’re gone. It’s easy for Derek to slip past the nurses and doctors into the dim room they have Stiles in. The curtain over the glass door has been drawn by Scott, giving them some privacy.

Derek forces himself to look, to see every spot visible where the hunters struck Stiles. There isn’t much to see, bandages covering most of the damage up. They have him on a ventilator, a machine breathing for him. Tubes and wires connect to his prone body, monitoring his body’s rhythms. He doesn’t need the heart monitor to hear the skip in Stiles’ heartbeat, as if it’s having trouble keeping up after all the damage sustained.

Derek breaths deep and can pick up the scent of latex and chemicals as the freshest scents on Stiles. Below it is the scent of grass and the smell of car oil. And just under that is the scent of whoever hurt him, their scent still strong along with the smell of pain and blood.

He and Scott are so lost in their studying of Stiles that they don’t hear the Sheriff approach or the door opening. They do hear when he clears his throat behind them. “What are you doing here, Hale?” he asks, hand gripping the door hard enough to make his knuckles go white.

“Sherriff,” Scott begins, but the Sheriff cuts him off with a sharp jerk of his chin, eyes never leaving Derek.

“Are you the one who did this? Are you here because of guilt?” the Sheriff asks harshly, eyes boring into Derek and he can’t look.

“I didn’t do this, but it’s my fault he got caught up in the middle,” Derek says.

The Sheriff starts to say something, but Derek cuts him off. “Not here,” he says, looking at Stiles. “I can explain things, but just not here.”

Frowning heavily, he nods in acceptance. “Follow me,” he says and turns to leave. “Scott, keep an eye on my son.”

Derek follows the Sheriff from the hospital and further away across the parking lot and out to a small strip of grass by the trees of the forest. He turns then and snarls out, “Explain.”

Derek growls in frustration, running a hand through his hair. “It’s hard to just say,” he admits, pacing a bit.

“Then just say it,” the Sheriff says.

“I just said it’s hard,” Derek growls back.

“God damn it, Derek, just fucking spit it out!” the Sheriff yells out and Derek nearly howls in frustration and turns to the Sheriff with his face shifted and eyes glowing red.

“This is what your son has gotten caught up in. Werewolves and hunters and other supernatural shit and he’s going to get himself killed and it will be all my fault,” Derek growls out, even as the Sheriff takes a step back, hand automatically going for his gun.

“A werewolf?” the Sheriff asks. Derek grunts and nods. “Do you know who did this to my son?”

Derek shifts back and nods. “One of them is dead, or will be soon. The others have already left,” Derek admits. He’d smelled Gerard Argent coming off of Stiles: that smell of old man and death.

“Could you find them?” he asks and Derek realizes with a shock of clarity that this isn’t the Sheriff he’s speaking to. This is Stiles’ father who is after those who hurt his child.

“Stiles would hate us for this. He won’t forgive me or you,” Derek warns. Stiles never wanted his father to get caught up in this. To never have been faced with these sorts of decisions.

“What Stiles doesn’t know, won’t hurt him,” he replies back easily. “I know he’s been protecting me from this and he’s just going to have to learn that it is not he who protects me, but me who protects him.” Derek eyes the man before him and nods.

**End.**


End file.
